Guest Column: Fear makes justice fumble

Posted: Saturday, January 28, 2006

Alan BeanOpinion

TULIA - Allen Finegold (Jan. 25 guest column) seems convinced that high school football has degraded the Texas educational system. He is particularly hard on Tulia, believing that too much football and not enough time with the books produced citizens so ignorant they couldn't see that Tom Coleman had faked drug cases involving innocent people.

Virtually everyone in Tulia's white community backed the sting because they liked their sheriff and hated drugs. Cowboys and truck drivers backed the sting. Doctors and lawyers backed the sting. If Tulia had any Indian chiefs, they would have backed the sting.

I opposed the Coleman sting because I didn't think anyone (even a "known drug dealer") should be condemned on the uncorroborated word of a single witness. Charles Kiker, the author of the op-ed piece Finegold denounces, opposed the sting for the same reason.

But we didn't make our stand because we are highly educated or because we are unusually intelligent. And we certainly didn't make our stand because the defendants were obviously innocent (we're not clairvoyant after all). We made our stand because Jesus, Moses and Paul the Apostle had taught us to be suspicious of single-witness testimony. When we learned the ugly facts about Coleman, we understood why.

I suspect most of the jurors at eight Tulia drug trials had learned this foundational biblical teaching. It is taught in Sunday school. And I suspect most of the Tulia jurors also were aware of the simple idea that lies at the core of our legal system: Defendants are to be presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This legal principle is taught in our public schools.

Our problem wasn't ignorance. Our problem was fear. Fear of putting a guilty person back on the street. Fear of going against popular opinion. Fear of disappointing public officials we respect.

So we forgot what we learned in school, and we forgot what we learned in church.

Tulia is America writ small. We failed because we were afraid. We were afraid of drugs. We were afraid of crime. We were afraid of bad people. So we forgot what we learned in church, and we forgot what we learned in school.

Football, like religion, is about overcoming fear. It takes courage to win when nobody thinks you can. It takes courage to play your heart out for a team that rarely wins. That's why it's an indispensable part of the curriculum, especially in small towns like Tulia.

Fear makes us stupid - not just in Swisher County or Gray County or Potter County, but everywhere. Even in islands of enlightenment like Austin and New York City, people do stupid, unjust things because they are afraid.

Some things can't be taught in a classroom or even in a church. Football is to school as life is to church. We fail not because we're dumb, but because we are too scared to live what we know.